By: Dr. Jonathan Juilfs

 “Jesus Christ is the image [Gk. eikon] of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him, all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible….He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church…and through him, God [the Father] was pleased to reconcile to himself all things…by making peace through the blood of his Cross.” (Colossians 1:15-20, NRSV)

During last week’s chapel (Nov 2), Prof. Phil Irish (Art) and several of his students facilitated a communal “painting” that we worked on throughout the liturgy (including during the message time). Phil provided a canvas on which was a life-size outline of a body with hands raised—like the arms of Jesus on the Cross—and sectioned into squares in which we, the members of the Body of Christ, could each paint a small patch in colors that we had chosen. The final product was a pastiche of our Redeemer community “grafted” onto the body of Christ, a beautiful and poignant pictorial symbol of our unity-in-diversity and of our communal desire to bind ourselves to Christ and to be his “members” reaching out to the world in love. This “God Sighting” reinforces my persistent awareness that the spiritual work ongoing in our midst is not just about academic knowledge, information building, or even skills acquisition. It is about the very literal “fashioning” of the Body of Christ, the building of a community that is the living image—the icon—of the invisible God, just as Jesus is the living image of God the Father. Thanks be to God!

For your reflection:

1) How is God calling me to be part of His Body of Christ?

2) How can I step into this further?